Inward Battles
by MortPourRien
Summary: Hermione, paranoia, mental torture, and Malfoy. oneshot, please read and review?


**A/N: May be a little repetitive, but no need to tell me so, it's meant to be that way.**

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He's staring at me again. I know he's staring at me. Why does he keep doing this? Why does he look away when I twist to face him? He looks away, doesn't he? I know he looks away quickly when I turn. I don't actually see it, I know, but he's fast. It's the Quidditch. It's the reflexes.

I know he's been staring at me. I can't take this. He has to stop doing this to me. Why is he doing this to me, my God, why is he doing this to me?

What does he have to gain from this? What's he trying to do? Torture me? Well, it will never work. Never. I'll never let him get to me.

He's not getting to me. He's not getting inside my head. I don't feel like he's reaching into my thoughts. He's not floating around, rifling through my memories, reading into me, finding my weaknesses, killing me slowly, painfully, inwardly… No, not me. Not me.

He will never get me to give in to his mind games. I am ignorant. I am immune. I will never surrender to him. He can never make me. I am strong. I will never give in to this. I won't give him what he wants. What I know he wants. What he will never get. Not from me.

Make him stop staring at me. My God, make him stop staring at me. This isn't getting to me. It can't be getting to me. Malfoy is not in my head.

I have to get him out of my head. I can't take any more of this madness. This madness… This lunacy… This insanity… This has to stop… I cannot take any more. I can't… I can feel his eyes on me. They send shivers down my spine. I can feel his eyes one me. His cold, grey eyes boring holes into the back of my head. I can't hide from them. They follow me and find me. They stay with me and haunt me. That demented stare only I see… I cannot shake him… I cannot lose him… I cannot quit him…

I caught him looking! I caught the bastard looking at me! I knew it, I knew it, I knew he was looking, I could feel it, I could feel his stare, I could feel the shudders he was causing to erupt throughout my entire being, I knew he was staring, I knew he was watching, I knew he was there, and he's everywhere now, I feel him, he's invading my thoughts, but I can't let him…

But it relaxes me… He relaxes me… It's so much easier not to fight… But to let a Malfoy into my head… I mustn't. But I want to, I almost want to… Almost… And when it's so cold, it's almost nice to have something to fall back on. To lean on. To soothe one in such a state as mine… A state of sheer paranoia…

Yes, I know of my position, how can I not when all I see are these walls? The walls of my whitewash prison. The walls he's built around me. I did love him. I loved my husband. I loved him to the day he sent me here. I loved him up until the moment all I saw was him. In my head, in my mind, n my thoughts, in my dreams, with me in the morning when I wake from my guarded slumber, in the day, with me in this room, and in the night as my fears rock me to sleep.

What scares me most is that I am never fully at peace anymore. The closest I get is when I let him in. When I allow Draco Malfoy into my mind. Only he can bring me peace now. Keeping him out only brings me memories I hate to face… To relive… So do I give in to him? I can never forgive him, I know, but may I secretly let him in? Let him in to ease my trauma… Yes… Perhaps I can…

But no one must ever know. No one must find out my secret. No one must ever know I find peace only in the thought of my former school rival, my archenemy, my husband. Is that a voice behind the door? Who goes there? Someone out to discover what I hide so well? Yes, I do believe I hide it well. Whose is that voice? Who is it who tries so hard to invade the clandestine prison of my mind? There is someone there, I know it. I can feel the hairs on my neck raise. The shuffling outside, the hushed whispers my ears pick up, still. There are men out there who, try as they might, will never reach what I guard. I shall keep my secret from the world. I shall keep it as my own, and only my own. My secret. My sanity.

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A window, concealed by magic, allowed a view into Hermione Malfoy's deafeningly silent room. At this window, day by day, would stand a despondent Draco Malfoy, sadly watching his beloved rock herself, gaze shifting rapidly from corner to corner, frail body trembling from slight, frequent convulsions. Each day would he reach out to touch her, wanting so desperately to have her back. To have his Hermione the way she was. The way they were.

"It can never be. Until tomorrow, again, love. Until I return." He turned on his way out and quietly breathed, "I know you'll wait for me."

He walked out of St. Mungo's and into the dark of the night.

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**A/N: Please RnR! You know I love you;D**


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